Apple opens Design Awards only to Mac apps in App Store

Unlike last year, Apple will once again offer Mac OS X developers a chance to …

Apple has announced the criteria for this year's Apple Design Awards (ADAs), given out during its yearly Worldwide Developers Conference. Like last year, Apple will be giving awards to top iPhone and iPad apps. Unlike last year, apps designed for Mac OS X will once again get some recognition. Still, apps that aren't in Apple's new Mac App Store won't be eligible for an award, giving developers yet another reason to begin considering the Mac App Store as the de facto distribution point for Mac software.

Last year, Apple snubbed Mac OS X developers by only offering ADAs for iPhone or iPad apps. Additionally, the sessions at WWDC 2010 were mostly focused on Apple's mobile operating system. With Apple's popular Mac Downloads page being retired, many Mac developers felt that Apple was letting the spotlight fade on Mac OS X in favor of iOS.

Early information about Lion suggests Apple is indeed beginning to take this approach by bringing lessons learned from the iPad to augment the Mac OS X interface and first-party apps. So, the distinction between Mac apps and iOS apps may indeed blur over the next few years.

Apple could also be using this year's ADAs to boost its App Store model of distribution. While some Mac apps and their developers will undoubtedly get the recognition we feel they deserve, only apps that are available in the Mac App Store as of May 23, 2011 will qualify for an award.

Apple will select apps based on excellence in design, innovation, and technical merit. Still, many such "elegant," "inspirational," and "technically advanced" Mac apps don't meet Apple's strict guidelines for inclusion on the Mac App Store, leaving them out in the cold when it comes to consideration for an ADA.

"My fellow Mac developers are laughing at the Mac App Store guidelines," developer Jonathan Rentzsch told Ars last October after Apple divulged app submission details. "They're reporting that apps they've been shipping for years—a number of them Apple Design Award-winning—would be rejected from the Mac App Store."

Back then, developers were concerned that the Mac App Store would become the sole source for Mac software and that outside distribution would be shunned. While Apple doesn't currently limit users from installing software from other sources, it also does nothing to promote sources other than the Mac App Store. The high-profile ADAs often lead to increased sales for developers, so limiting this year's Mac OS X ADAs to Mac App Store apps could cause users to pass over otherwise excellent software and reinforce the idea that the Mac App Store is the only place to get quality Mac software.

If that's the case, developers may end up with no other alternative but to "adapt to the new order of things, where Apple calls the shots," as developer Daniel Jalkut described it to Ars. That could include cutting features that Apple doesn't approve, giving up direct access to customers for support and feedback, and handing over 30 percent of all sales to Apple. Otherwise, developers might not be able to attract enough attention to their own websites or other sales channels to sustain development of non-Mac App Store software.

The Mac is not iOS, and will never be locked down in that way. That Mac App Store is a good thing, in that it forces developers to follow user interface guidelines and best practices, leading to a more consistent experience across the board. It's a bit hypocritical however, considering Apple doesn't have consistency across its own apps: look at iTunes, Safari, and Mail to see three different approaches. Thankfully, the previews of Lion seem to indicate that everything now conforms.

All that being said, I find this to be a dumb move. There are legitimate reasons for not being in the Mac App Store. One shining example is 1Password. This app is not currently allowed on the Store because it uses a Safari plugin, rather than an extension. Safari plugins, however, are officially supported by Apple, they're just not "best practice." This is an application that is one of the most popular, most acclaimed, and among the best the Mac has to offer, yet is barred entry to the Store (temporarily according to Agile's website). Until Apple themselves begin to follow the guidelines, these awards should be open to all.

EDIT: Removed <a> tag. Is HTML coding not allowed on these posts? I've never tried until just now.

The Mac is not iOS, and will never be locked down in that way. That Mac App Store is a good thing, in that it forces developers to follow user interface guidelines and best practices, leading to a more consistent experience across the board.

Hahahaha! Have you seen the stuff on there? There are some great examples of UI design but for every one good, there are myriad more that are atrociously bad.

What's especially grating, for the Mac at least, is direct ports of iOS software that retains the rounded-square "touch" icon without consideration for the style of icons used in OS X. Then again, the iTunes and App Store icons from Apple are hardly encouraging people to make nice icons, if that's the contemporary standard they're setting of blue circle with white silhouette inside.

The writing's been on the wall for some time. Even if Apple doesn't lock out unsigned apps, Apple will continue to "enhance" the experience for app store apps by giving them tighter integration while excluding other apps and gradually, the other apps will be left out in the cold. Apple will then have virtual veto power over what apps users can install.

Wait a minute- realize that Apple applications are left out as well. No Final Cut, no Filemaker, plus other major 3rd party applications like Maya, Office, and Creative Suite. The goal this year is to accentuate the Mac App Store, and it will do that very well. But I don't think for a second Apple is looking to kill off those others (well maybe Final Cut, but that's a whole 'nother conversation).

Wait a minute- realize that Apple applications are left out as well. No Final Cut, no Filemaker, plus other major 3rd party applications like Maya, Office, and Creative Suite. The goal this year is to accentuate the Mac App Store, and it will do that very well. But I don't think for a second Apple is looking to kill off those others (well maybe Final Cut, but that's a whole 'nother conversation).

Apple doesn't need to overtly kill them off. Apple just needs to enhance app store apps with auto-updates and other candy and leave other apps out. The market will then take care of things for Apple.

iOSX, I tawt I taw a puddy tat. Somehow, I find it hard to imagine anyone using software currently available IN the Mac App store *to develop software* to be sold IN the Mac App store. Is the entire Mac line headed toward data consumption?

iOSX, I tawt I taw a puddy tat. Somehow, I find it hard to imagine anyone using software currently available IN the Mac App store *to develop software* to be sold IN the Mac App store. Is the entire Mac line headed toward data consumption?

... So you don't think any of the software in the Mac App Store was made with Xcode?

It's unlikely that they will lock down the development platform, but they might try to make it seem that way. Right now, I think they just want the Mac App Store to do well.

I believe the opposite. I think within a year or two max, the only way to distribute software for the OSX platform will be through Apple's App store - just like the iOS. Not only do they have a HUGE level of control over competitive software to anything they develop internally, but they make 30% margins off someone else's work.

Apple will continue to wall off it's eco-system from everything external as long as customers buy into it, which right now they are. The idea of only one store to shop from for any product makes me question the wisdom of supporting that financially.

The no keys required or implementation of its own protection may be the problem for some of the award winning apps that do not qualify but that is not exactly a bad thing for consumers. There are countless attempts to make a App Store on other platforms so they are dosing something right.

Apple's been getting away with gouging their customers for years, and figured... why not do it to their developers too?

How are they doing that again?

Mostly through record high profits every year. When a company makes "record" profits, that means that they sold their products with incredibly high margins over the cost of producing the goods.

So, although this is great for shareholders of Apple, if you are a customer you have basically been "gouged". Apple could lower prices and still make a bundle.

Another way of thinking is that if you had a car dealer in your town that sold every car above MSRP, while all the other dealers made deals at less than MSRP, then your friends would say you were gouged if you bought a car from the over-priced dealer. Apple is the dealer who pawns the same internal hardware (ram, cpu, memory, screens, etc...) that other people use in their laptops and desktops for a much higher price.

eh, it's Apples own award so they can do whatever they want. You don't have to take them seriously if you don't want. Doing so only legitimizes them further. Personally, I consider them as just some "fun" exercise, nothing more.

OTOH, they should be called Apple App Store Design Awards, to head off any confusion.

No. It's up to the consumer to decide whether they want to purchase an item (especially one that is effectively a luxury item). It's their fault if they are being overcharged. At the end of the day, their price vs value is just a matter of opinion. One person's gouge is another person's fair deal.

Actually you didn't answer the original question. How are they gouging the developers?

Wait a minute- realize that Apple applications are left out as well. No Final Cut, no Filemaker, plus other major 3rd party applications like Maya, Office, and Creative Suite. The goal this year is to accentuate the Mac App Store, and it will do that very well. But I don't think for a second Apple is looking to kill off those others (well maybe Final Cut, but that's a whole 'nother conversation).

I don't think that any Apple shareholder or exec wants to lose money. But do you think that Apple's huge revenue growth is from all professional graphic artists? Apple is making the big money from average consumers and that is the market they are clearly targeting and hard. Apple will make WAY more income from Garage Band than they will make from selling hardware seats for something like Ableton, Pro Tools, etc.

Even with the Creative Suite, the way Apple's growth and market hold has been focused in the mobile and casual computer user spaces - I can see them closing off Adobe all the way and saying "tough shit, take the new app store or leave it".

eh, it's Apples own award so they can do whatever they want. You don't have to take them seriously if you don't want. Doing so only legitimizes them further. Personally, I consider them as just some "fun" exercise, nothing more.

OTOH, they should be called Apple App Store Design Awards, to head off any confusion.

Exactly! Ty for one person who understands that this is not really news. Will I stop buying BRU.app, or DVD2oneX2.app just because they are not on the Mac App store? No.

Mostly through record high profits every year. When a company makes "record" profits, that means that they sold their products with incredibly high margins over the cost of producing the goods.

So, although this is great for shareholders of Apple, if you are a customer you have basically been "gouged". Apple could lower prices and still make a bundle.

Incorrect. A customer is gouged when he pays a price for a product or service that is not justified by the value he receives from it. If customers feel that the product earns its valuation, regardless of the margin between sale price and bill of materials, the customer has not, by definition been gouged.

Further, the profits declared in a given year may in fact reflect a multi-year investment in research and development, costs that are indirectly recouped. Record profits can simply be a function of record units sold, where each unit over a certain break-even point increases profitability more than the previous.

Can we please stop with the errant economics? Criticize Apple because you feel that their products don't justify the prices they set - a subjective. Don't then try to fit economic theory to fit your bias, masking as objective. The subjective is valid on its own as opinion.

Actually you didn't answer the original question. How are they gouging the developers?

By taking 30% of their profits? Of course, that is still fairly tame compared to the obscene cut various other publishing industries exact. Either way though, it is an outrageous compensation for the service that they provide; digital "publishing" would be a fraction of the cost if not for the barriers to competition.

Now, queue the "but you can always go elsewhere" responses. That doesn't change the fact that Apple is heavily gouging their developers.

The writing's been on the wall for some time. Even if Apple doesn't lock out unsigned apps, Apple will continue to "enhance" the experience for app store apps by giving them tighter integration while excluding other apps and gradually, the other apps will be left out in the cold. Apple will then have virtual veto power over what apps users can install.

Apple isn't that stupid (because that would be incredibly stupid). If Apple pisses-off developers, they just won't support the platform and it'll start to die. For example, if Adobe said "Screw you guys, we're going home...", where would Apple be in design circles? The applications are much more important than the OS or the hardware.

The design awards are just for the sake of promotion... and Apple wants to promote stuff in the app store. Is it a silly move if the goal is the appreciation of design? Yeah probably. But it's not like it's something that will negatively affect Apple... what's a Mac developer going to do, stop developing applications because they feel slighted?

Sigh! Yet another illustration of Apple's growing Prussian-like obsession with control. Another reason for me to avoid buying from the App Store whenever possible.

Prussian-like, for those unfamiliar with German history, refers the authoritarian culture of Germans living in the north and west of their country. The region had never been conquered and civilized by Rome and, unlike the Rhineland, Christianity came late (12th century), by force and shallowly. Tribes, perpetually at war with one another, depended on strong and ruthless leaders to maintain order rather than on the rule of law and the discipling influence of religion. Luther's Prussian religion, with a God who hurls lightning bolts in his fury, is more Nordic pagan than Christian.

"All that is not forbidden is mandatory" is one illustration of that mindset. Another is the 19th century European maxim that Germany was "too big for Europe, too small for the world." Germany would dream of world domination, particularly at the height of its military and industrial prowess in the late nineteenth and early twentieth. But it would crushed by the wrath of the world, particularly the US. Today's Germans are but a pale shadow of their ancestors. The Bavarians, bless their hears, still love to party. The Prussians have become little more than ill-tempered, rule-obsessed grouches and international scolds.

It was Prussian Germany, never a part of the Roman empire, that went heavily for the Nazis. Some 70 percent of Prussian farmers voted Nazi in the critical last free election where the party only won 37.4% of the broader German vote. In rural Catholic Bavaria virtually no one voted Nazi. In Bavaria, authoritarianism held no appeal. A little over a decade before the rise of Nazism G. K. Chesterton had noted the cultural difference between the two regions when he described a friend who'd rather live in hell than Berlin, and who'd rather live in Munich than heaven.

For the Prussian mindset, the solution to every problem is an authority dictating what may and may not be done. In the technical context that means what app may or may not be installed and even what app is permitted win an award. It's not a healthy attitude to have. It creates arrogance at the top and obeisance at the bottom.

Some people worry about what will happen to Apple after Steve Jobs leaves. Over the last year I've begun to worry about what will happen to Apple if he doesn't soon leave. Apple's becoming more and more like the company it denounced in "1984." It's become a closed "Garden of pure delight" where Apple itself dictates what fruits may be eaten. That's not good. Apple needs healthy internal dissent.

--Michael W. Perry, editor of Chesterton on War and Peace: Battling the Ideas and Movements that Led to Nazism and World War II

Now, queue the "but you can always go elsewhere" responses. That doesn't change the fact that Apple is heavily gouging their developers.

By providing a payable service which allows any developer to have a huge POS channel? I think 30% is high, but then I'm not a self employed developer. How else are developers to present their product? How much would that cost? Is that cost comparable to Apple's cut? I don't know, do you?

Sigh! Yet another illustration of Apple's growing Prussian-like obsession with control. Another reason for me to avoid buying from the App Store whenever possible.

While I appreciate the history lesson (no, honestly), Apple isn't enforcing anything. They have a paid service that they provide for developers, which they have full control of and no wonder, it's theirs. No developer is forced to us Mac App store. Apple is just keen for them to do so, because it could be a lucrative money spinner. How is this a bad thing? i.e. how is promoting your company's services wrong?

Now, queue the "but you can always go elsewhere" responses. That doesn't change the fact that Apple is heavily gouging their developers.

By providing a payable service which allows any developer to have a huge POS channel? I think 30% is high, but then I'm not a self employed developer. How else are developers to present their product? How much would that cost? Is that cost comparable to Apple's cut? I don't know, do you?

I don't think the issue is the existence of the App store or even it's onerous terms for use. The elephant in the room is the possibility of the App Store becoming the only game in town, which would be an affront to software developers everywhere, since then developers would have no means to avoid giving Apple 30% of their profits just to act as a mandatory middleman...

The app store is perfectly fine for startup companies looking to find a way to break into the market or find an audience. For established parties, though who have been profitable on the Mac for years, it's a hindrance and an unacceptable money sink to fork over that much revenue for likely no additional-- or even net negative-- profit.

As long as developers aren't REQUIRED to use the app store, I have no problem with this, but it that changes, then I think it would be a very bad thing.

Now, queue the "but you can always go elsewhere" responses. That doesn't change the fact that Apple is heavily gouging their developers.

By providing a payable service which allows any developer to have a huge POS channel? I think 30% is high, but then I'm not a self employed developer. How else are developers to present their product? How much would that cost? Is that cost comparable to Apple's cut? I don't know, do you?

I don't think the issue is the existence of the App store or even it's onerous terms for use. The elephant in the room is the possibility of the App Store becoming the only game in town, which would be an affront to software developers everywhere, since then developers would have no means to avoid giving Apple 30% of their profits just to act as a mandatory middleman...

I'm confused, how is that a possibility? Unless you mean the only game in iOS town? I mean, it's becoming increasingly clear that Android is not only a good bet, it might be the *best* bet in the long(ish) term.When developers tire of being gardeners in the gated garden, they can freelance outside of those gates. It's nice out here. You can even manage your own files.

Now, queue the "but you can always go elsewhere" responses. That doesn't change the fact that Apple is heavily gouging their developers.

By providing a payable service which allows any developer to have a huge POS channel? I think 30% is high, but then I'm not a self employed developer. How else are developers to present their product? How much would that cost? Is that cost comparable to Apple's cut? I don't know, do you?

I don't think the issue is the existence of the App store or even it's onerous terms for use. The elephant in the room is the possibility of the App Store becoming the only game in town, which would be an affront to software developers everywhere, since then developers would have no means to avoid giving Apple 30% of their profits just to act as a mandatory middleman...

The app store is perfectly fine for startup companies looking to find a way to break into the market or find an audience. For established parties, though who have been profitable on the Mac for years, it's a hindrance and an unacceptable money sink to fork over that much revenue for likely no additional-- or even net negative-- profit.

As long as developers aren't REQUIRED to use the app store, I have no problem with this, but it that changes, then I think it would be a very bad thing.

Similar to iTunes, I assume you mean. Well, I personally think it's unlikely, but it is possible and I agree that it would be bad. For everyone. Except Apple of course.

That being said, these kinds of discussions (especially when Apple is concerned, when it used to MS who were copping it) usually turn into over the top conspiracy theory ranting.

I don't think the issue is the existence of the App store or even it's onerous terms for use. The elephant in the room is the possibility of the App Store becoming the only game in town, which would be an affront to software developers everywhere, since then developers would have no means to avoid giving Apple 30% of their profits just to act as a mandatory middleman...

Sure they would. They could simply move to another platform.

Apple doesn't have some sort of lock on developers that currently target its OSes. If its terms become too draconian, and developers find it unprofitable, they'll migrate somewhere else. What, exactly, is all the advance wringing of hands for?

It seems that the whole debacle centers around whether the Mac App Store will eventually become the 'only' way to get Mac software. Some think that's the case, some think that's not. But I think this issue is tangential to the actual discussion at hand.

Regardless of how it turns out, Apple is free to choose the criteria for giving out its own awards. Heck, there wasn't any for Mac apps last year! If it thinks the nudge (a big one, I guess) to use MAS is needed, then let it use it as a criterion for an award. I use bunch of apps on my Mac that haven't earned any Apple awards - while an award and recognition is really nice, it's not like as if lack of one would break a deal for me.